Chelsea were knocked out of the FA Cup tonight by
Manchester United at Stamford Bridge. Having already called for Maurizio Sarri
to be sacked last weekend, this performance does nothing to change my mind. By
the sounds of it, plenty in the stands are beginning to feel the same.

We wanted to see a reaction domestically tonight having
been thumped by Manchester City just over a week ago. Forget Malmo in the Europa
League, this is where it matters at home against an old foe. For 30 minutes we
had some sort of reaction until the wheels came off defensively again. Just
fifteen minutes later United took advantage of our defensive frailties to
capitalise and make it 0-2 just before half-time. Make no mistake, Manchester
United toyed with Chelsea this evening and we had literally no answer.

Apart from a David Luiz free-kick in the first half and the
subsequent rebound from Pedro, Chelsea created NOTHING. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
set his side up superbly without the ball, with each player doing their job and
Chelsea could not break them down. A red wall appeared in the second half with
plenty of men behind the ball leaving Chelsea with no space to play in front of
their back-four but, to force them wide. As a result, we passed the ball
backwards, sideways, backwards again to repeat the process before someone
became so desperate to try and move the ball forward that we either gave it
away or, it came to nothing. It was easy for the opposition to defend. You could have checked out the free football betting tips pre-game or even in-game to place bets on Chelsea not scoring this evening.

The biggest issue for all of us here is that we want to see
our players express themselves just like the Manchester United players have since
Solskjaer took over. We want to see us use the obvious attacking talent we have
to play fast tempo, expressive and an attacking style of football. The problem
is that at the moment we seem to be incapable of doing that against teams that
set their stall out to stop us. We have become the most predictable side in the
Premier League and that’s without me talking about team selection and in-game substitutions.

Everyone knows who is going to start, where they are going
to play, what they are going to try and do and finally, who is going to be
replaced knowing who is coming on to try and play the same way! It’s an
absolute joke now, it really is.

The two goals were our own doing. Cesar Azpilicueta had
left his position and pressed forward down the right hand side. Having lost the
ball, Paul Pogba stepped into the space he had left behind. Juan Mata with
space behind Jorginho and in front of our back-four was allowed to collect the
ball without any challenge TWICE in midfield to play the ball into Pogba. In doing
so, Mateo Kovacic left his position on the left of our midfield three and was
sucked right over to the right leaving space in front of Marcos Alonso. Toni Rudiger
left his position to move to right-back to cover the space Azpilicueta had left
which mean’t that David Luiz moved right of centre at the back with Alonso
stuck marking Rashford on the back post. Rashford spots Hererra making a run unmarked
from the midfield in the space left by Kovacic and makes his run across our back
four towards David Luiz. At this point, Alonso see’s Rashford’s run and goes to
cover it but then spots Hererra when it’s too late as Pogba floats a cross over
to him and the Spaniard heads home to make it 0-1. It was a total shambles
caused by people ball watching OR, being told that they need to play closer
together in the midfield.

The second goal is another mess. The ball is being knocked
about in midfield above head-height. Jorginho and Kante get in each others way
and the ball falls to Pogba to has time to look up and play a pass in-behind Alonso
to Rashford down the right-wing. He waits, and waits, and waits longer for
Pogba to make a run into the box, then Rashford plays a whipped cross into the
box right onto Pogba’s head who has moved in-between Rudiger and Azpilicueta to
head home despite a valiant attempt by Kepa to keep it out – making it 0-2 from
12 yards.

Even before they scored, United had opened us up on at
least three occasions to demonstrate that they would be an attacking threat all
night. The warning signs were there but we never made any changes to counter
their obvious attacking threat.

Under Maurizio Sarri, based on the last six defeats in
fifteen games the following has become clear:

·We do
not have the players here to play the way he wants now. We need to remove Jorginho
from playing in front of the back four. He offers us nothing defensively
despite having a certain responsibility to defend in that position. Stick N’Golo
Kante there for god sake!

·The
tactical system is flawed when you refuse to try and adapt it to work when it’s
obvious that it does not.

·We are
absolute clueless playing this way when teams pack their defensive shape with
high numbers defending the edge of their box narrow, forcing us wide.

·We are
too predictable in every way. In defence and in attack.

·Why
bother naming seven substitutes when it’s the same three that are used 99% of
the time.

·The
manager must be sacked now because NOTHING is going to change under Sarri.

I really cannot stress enough how
I believe that Manchester United came here and did a job on Chelsea tonight,
just like Tottenham, Arsenal, Bournemouth and Manchester City did. They toyed
with Chelsea knowing that if they took their chances they could sit back, dig-in
and force Chelsea to play wide knowing that we would run out of ideas.

I posted ahead of the game
that it was the first time in years I was dreading playing Manchester United.
Now, after watching that with everything else I have seen in recent weeks, I
don’t think I could face watching us this Sunday against Manchester City at Wembley
with Maurizio Sarri in charge!